Nairobi

After a 24 hour layover in Brussels and 2 missing bags, I finally made it to my destination in Nairobi. The city of Nairobi can be summed up in three words – people, cars, and walls.

People are everywhere, filling the sidewalks, walking on the road, weaving through traffic. They line the streets selling everything from shoes to clothes to food to suitcases. We visited Kibera, Africa’s second largest slum and I felt like I was watching a movie where they show the slums from above and all you can see are the roofs of the shanty houses. But this was not a movie, it was their reality. We walked through the Toi Market which consisted of a maze of vendors with a sidewalk sized walkway and a narrow rain drain littered with trash running throughout the maze of vendors. It is hard to understand how anyone could make money in this market. I saw tons of vendors all selling hundreds of the same food like tomatoes. How can you move that many goods before it goes rotten? Children, many of whom were orphans, wondered throughout the market and down the streets. The road was lined with trash and of course people. But, I have felt very safe and welcomed by the people of Kenya. In the city, everyone speaks English which has made things very easy when talking to people.

I have never seen driving quite like what I have seen in Nairobi. I have driven through downtown Chicago but it pales in comparison to Nairobi. Cars, buses, trucks, and taxi’s jam the streets. I only saw a few traffic lights but drivers ignored them. It was a frenzy of merging, weaving, and cutting people off. It is surprising that people get anywhere but amazingly everyone seemed to move in unison. With a wave and a smile, Jared cut through oncoming traffic and worked his way throughout the city. The amount of traffic created a continuous smell of exhaust. The mix of smell of dirt and exhaust was overwhelming.

Downtown Nairobi is similar to other cities…large buildings, lots of people but as soon as you drive out of Nairobi it drastically changes. Everything – houses, apartments, restaurants, businesses are all surrounded by walls. Walls made of barbed wire or bricks surround all buildings. The only way in is through a gate with a guard. It feels so uninviting to me…to drive down the street and only see walls.

Now we head out of the Nairobi to Narok….from the city to the Rift valley…it will be a huge change but every day here brings something new and unexpected.